border:none 2013

2013/10/26

Yesterday I attended the first ever border:none conference in Nuremberg, a conference focused on the mobile we. I really enjoyed the day there and am still have to wrap my head around all the things I learned there. The talks spread over technical and conceptual topics around the web (not only the “mobile” one) and I came home with a long list of things to think about and to try out. Let me try to summarize the talks a bit.

The Talks

As already mentioned the talks spread across a diverse set of topics. It started with Jay talking about some great new layout features that are coming to CSS and how they allow new ways of presenting your content.

Where as Tobias talked on something completely different topic: How to actually test the performance of your websites under real-life conditions and how to automate this process for desktop and mobile browsers. I think that performance measurement is generally a topic that will get more and more into focus, as the responsive hype becomes a standard.

Keeping the testing topic Rodney got into “test the web forward” – writing test for browser to ensure they comply with the actual specifications. So instead of just working around a bug in your current project, write a test for all and make the web a little less broken.

After lunch Vasilis got back towards a more design-y direction. Using the idea that on the web there is no fixed canvas. Still there are a lot of aspects that can define a good design which should all focus around the actual content.

Vitaly afterwards did a wrap-up of the various tools and techniques that are out there for responsive webdesign. He managed to bring up the pieces that you might have heard of at some point but which aren’t widely used (yet).

Having read Bastian’sLet’s build a better web a couple of weeks ago, I was quite excited about his talk. I like such talks that go beyond the scope of the every day work and get to the bigger picture about how the web works and where we can bring it.

One of the best speakers I’ve seen is Jeremy. To close this awesome conference day he got back to very basic ideas that are already built into HTML, CSS and JavaScript. That our goal shouldn’t be to make the web accessible and responsive, because the web already is this way. Instead we should try to not screw it up.

This list is surely not complete and only reflects a few bits of what I took from this conference. If you weren’t able to attend the conference, make sure you watch the videos once they are up, I highly recommend them.

The Conference

At the unbeatable price of only 30€ it was a no-brainer for Jojo, Fabian, Sonja and me to go there. Despite a large traffic jam on the autobahn we arrived at the venue just in time for the first talk.

The venue was an amazing old movie theater, the Orpheum, where the team behind border:none – especially Marc and Joschi – had to bring and install everything themselves. A huge thanks to all the people who made this conference possible and ensured the nice atmosphere.

The only particular wish I have for the next border:none: Chairs which are a bit more comfortable.